The World According to Garp
“A book feels true when it feels true,” she said to him, impatiently. “A book’s true when you can say, “Yeah! That’s just how damn people behave all the time.” Then you know it’s true,” Jillsy said.
Continue reading »Category: NYT Bestsellers
Novels which have appeared on the New York Times’ Bestseller List.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead.
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The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
During a snowstorm in late 1964, Dr. David Henry and his wife rush to his small clinic in the middle of the night to give birth to their first child. The delivery unexpectedly produces boy / girl twins, and David immediately recognizes the signs of Down’s Syndrome in the little girl.
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Girl With a Pearl Earring
Van Ruijevn takes an instant interest in Griet and sexually harasses her. She narrowly escapes and vows to avoid him in the future, but Van Ruijevn demands that Johannes paint the girl for him, using the commissioned portrait as a ruse to further intimidate Griet. Vermeer can hardly refuse, as his livelihood depends on giving the patrons of the arts what they desire. To make matters yet more uncomfortable, Johannes has decided that Griet should wear his wife’s beautiful pearl earrings when she sits for him.
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The Book Thief
Death explains that there are certain humans that he takes special notice of, and that he first saw Liesel when he came for her brother’s soul and witnessed her stealing her first book. Dubbing her “The Book Thief”, Death keeps an eye on her throughout her life as he comes for other people that she is close to.
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The Reader
It has been argued that Hanna’s literal ignorance (illiteracy) is a metaphor for our generation’s ignorance of the enormity of the Holocaust. Once she remedied her ignorance, she was unable to live with herself when it was coupled with her real-life experience of the Holocaust. While I agree with the aphorism ‘those who remain ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it’, I disagree that Hanna would be unaware on a human level of the atrocities being committed.
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The Time Traveler’s Wife
One thing I can say about the story is that Henry’s interaction as an adult with Claire as a little girl is very much part of the love story, rather than being creepy. It could easily have veered into a grotesque, Humbert Humbert-ish parody of a May-December relationship, but it doesn’t.
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Dawsey reveals that he is a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – a group formed as a lark when he and several neighbors were caught breaking curfew by the Nazis, and in part to conceal a secret roast pig. As time went on, however, the society became important to all of them as a way to distract themselves from the Occupation, and strong friendships were forged.
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In the Woods
The tone is eerily set when on one such night, three children disappear into the woods to play and don’t return. The police are dispatched, and find no traces whatsoever of two of the children. The third, a terrified little boy with his fingernails embedded in the tree he is plastered against, is catatonic and his shoes are filled with blood.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Although brilliant, Christopher struggles with many of the trappings of such a disorder. He is agoraphobic, afraid of strangers, dislikes being touched, dislikes any deviation from a predictable routine, cannot correctly interpret tone of voice or facial expressions, and very much lives in his own world. His tutor, Siobhan, has drawn a chart with faces on it displaying various expressions, which Christopher carries around with him so that he can compare it with the faces of those he interacts with; helping him understand if they are happy, sad, angry, etc.
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The Thirteenth Tale
She has given hundreds of interviews over the course of her career “My genius is not so fragile that it must be shut away”, but when it comes to the inevitable questions about herself; she’s cooperative but her answers are always lies. Not lies, stories. After all, storytelling is her craft, and there is nothing more telling than a good story.
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Dead Until Dark
Don’t Bother if: You’re on team “I’m so sick of hearing about vampires I could puke.” While the vampires are far less emo weiner-y than Edward, they’re still essentially vampires in a romance novel, even if it disguises itself pretty well as a murder mystery.
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